Archive for May, 2008
Monday, May 12th, 2008
I have to say that I have been missing out on a great place here in Denver. With several Indigians volunteering for this weekend’s plant sale @DBG, I decided it was a good opportunity to chip in and take some pictures for the current social media campaign we have rolled out for the gardens.
I was blown away.
For those who don’t know me, I attended Oregon State University and received my B.S. degree in Botany. I also have dabbled in, and continue to show interest in graffiti art. And as you may know, Denver Botanic Gardens has put the two together to develop a unique and outstanding meduim in their current exhibit Urban Nature.
It’s amazing, when I ask myself ‘why did I spend all that time and money in college and do nothing with it?’ Then, I find myself working for a great company in downtown Denver and going on-site to one of the top-ranked botanical gardens in the US to shoot pictures for the benefit of their website. I guess I can’t say it didn’t work out for me, because even though i’m not in a lab testing Phytophthora infestans’ resistance to fungicide- I get to stroll around a beautiful venue and snap picutres of two things I love for a good cause.
So, I feel somewhat lucky to be so involved with this campaign. I would highly recommend giving the gardens a visit sometime soon. Different species will be coming into bloom over the next few weeks, and the plantlife will certainly compliment the artist’s work as time elapses over the summer.
Monday, May 12th, 2008
After a few months of hearing nothing but bad things about search engine optimization (thanks Calacanis, but SEO is NOT bullshit), an article in Slate praising its talents:
http://www.slate.com/id/2190387/
Monday, May 12th, 2008
I mean honestly, how do you pass on someone who knows internets.
My thanks to Dave Herrold for instant messaging the link to this gem. Unless, this is actually a photo of a younger Dave Herrold and this was his idea of a resume. Hum, I wonder.
I also think we may need to look at changing Indigio’s tagline from Succeed Online to We Know Internets.
Monday, May 12th, 2008
I was asked by my friend about “Testing methodology” and what this means. To be honest, I could not answer. I tried to come up with answers, but was only able to produce something along the lines of “test type”, “test case design technique”, “test level” and few others. My friend told me that “Testing methodology” includes “Regression Testing”, “Unit Testing, and “Performance Testing”. I did not agree with him and had to look up in QA Department documentation. Here is what I have found…
1. Categorization of testing based on the knowledge of system (Testing Type):
·Black Box Testing
·White Box Testing
·Gray Box Testing
2. Categorization of testing based on the time it is executed in the Software Development Life Cycle (Testing Technique):
·Unit Testing
·Integration Testing
·System Testing
·User Acceptance Testing
Examples of Black Box testing techniques:
·Exploratory testing
·Function testing
·Regression testing
Examples of White Box testing techniques:
·Statement testing and coverage
·Decision testing and coverage
·Control Structure Testing: Condition Testing and Data Flow Testing
3. Test Case Design Techniques (Black Box)
·Error Guessing
·Boundary Value Analysis
·Equivalence Partitioning
·Orthogonal Array Testing
As you can see, we do not use the “Testing methodology” term. When I did search for it, I found that sometimes it means the same as Testing Technique (“Testing methodology includes Unit Testing, Integration Testing..”), sometimes it means “the strategy for testing” for a particular project (which to me would be a Test Plan), and sometimes it means “an approach for testing.”
Mike Girenko
Sunday, May 11th, 2008
I’m taking off for Vegas tomorrow night to attend the Suburban Newspapers of America’s (SNA) Interactive Strategies for Suburban and Community Markets meeting on May 13. Indigio is a proud sponsor of the event and I will have 5 minutes to tell the attendees about us, what we do and how we can help their newspaper sites evolve. I’ll post while I’m there and the presentation will also be videotaped (gulp… which depending on how it comes out I may post too after the show).
Look’s like a good agenda. There’s a session on Social Networking presented by the Bakersfield, Californian that should be relevant to our social marketplace work that are kicking off with MNGi and what looks to be another session on serving readers and advertisers through search marketing. Looking forward sharing our perspective on that too. I will be in Vegas for exactly 24 hours. Stay tuned for how much I can squeeze into that timeframe!
Sunday, May 11th, 2008
Friday, May 9th, 2008
Windex Cleaning in 10 Seconds!
JohnsonDiversey launches a new site with Indigio
Who says you cannot kill germs and Bacteria in just 10 seconds? JDBrandsPromo is the place to go if you own a Daycare, Bar, Restaurant or any business that is looking for cleaning supplies. If you are lucky enough to get a promo code you can even save money on your purchases. Visit JDBrandsPromo.com
This site was built using Dotnetnuke, so JohnsonDiversey can change the Products or Product information with the click of the mouse.
Stay tuned for more Johnson Diversey updates coming soon.
Thursday, May 8th, 2008
One of my very first professional programming jobs was to write scrapers to extract Job Listings from various sites and massage them into a format for import into the CareerSite application. In 1997 this meant Perl, enough complicated regular expressions to make you go blind, and LWP::UserAgent. Forms were rarely an issue and one just had to crawl their way through the site happily lifting the content. Even if a form did get in the way it was relatively simple exercise to set the params and fire off a properly formed POST. Cookies and Javascript were rarely an issue.
A typical script might look like this:
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
$ua->agent("MikeBot");
$response = $ua->post( "http://www.monster.com/search",
{
"category" => "IT",
"company_name" => "IBM"
}
);
...
WWW::Mechanize came along later, extended LWP::UserAgent, and solved the repetitive tasks of cookie handling, form processing, traversing links, etc. WWW::Mechanize is still actively maintained and can be used to effectively crawl reasonable web sites.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
This evening I joined the Sales and Marketing team for a short trek up to Boulder to attend the New Tech Meetup. We have been following the Meetups with some interest as there is a vibrant start up community in Boulder. Several former Indigians have moved on to new opportunities in the area as well. The event did not disappoint from an entertainment and inspiration standpoint.
Being the newbies of the bunch we did not realize that the rear of the auditorium was reserved for the hecklers and managed to stumble smack dab into the middle of the circus. Despite the seemingly juvenile antics, one can’t help but respect the intense sense of camaraderie and energy that exists within the community. The common bond that exists as a result of the shared struggles for funding, the seemingly insurmountable technological barriers that must be overcome for the next ‘big’ demo, and the never ending of list of todo’s can only truly be appreciated by those that have participated in the spectacle.
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Monday, May 5th, 2008
Tonight I was watching a show that talked about people’s hidden talents. It got me thinking about the talented people we have at Indigio and how it is not restricted only to creating amazing Web sites.
We have Summer Kelsey who may be doing Accounting for Indigio by day, but on nights and weekends is rocking out amazing homemade cakes that are worthy of the Food Network. We at Indigio are spoiled and Indigio makes one of her amazing cakes each month to celebrate birthdays of Indigians. Check out her photo gallery to see some of her cake masterpieces - Cakes by Summer. I have included April’s recent wonder, which as in the shape of a gumball machine. Yes, that is a cake; I know amazing, huh?.
There is Jessica Slater who is a very good Client Services Manager at Indigio, but also a very talented muscian with her husband Andy. Together they form the musical duo, The Alltunators. They play mostly folksy-blues-grass-jazz type music and perform throughout the Denver area. I checked out their site and they have 6 dates on the calendar already for June. If you can make one of her shows, I recommend it.
Mike Minton who heads our Technology Team is an engineering genius, but also builds amazing model train displays. I read his blog dedicated to building model trains and I am always amazed on how much detail he puts into his displays. They are absolutely amazing and it is great to see his passion. The scenery looks so realistic. Recently, I even saw him looking at sticks in City Park while at the MS Walk trying to find a stick with the texture he needed. Again, his level of detail cannot be matched.
Need advice on home repairs? Our Client Services Coordinator, Wayne Rodgers is the guy for you. I love his blog dedicated to repairs for his first home. More than just a blog about home repairs, Wayne offers advice to other first-time home owners looking to do repairs. He tracks costs, hours and provides photos to demonstrate dos and don’ts. His blog is amazing and he is truly a gifted at home remodeling. The before and after pictures speak for themselves.
The list goes on and on of the amazing talent and hobbies of my fellow Indigians. These are just four examples.
P.S. - Our Vice President of Client Services, Becki Dilworth can type the alphabet in something like 3-seconds. Not sure if this compares to musical or baking talents, but I find it fairly impressive.
